Techmeme
September 23, 2026, 6:05 PM

Top News

Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
Image YouTube rolls out tools for microdramas, an AI storytelling assistant for script analysis, video A/B-testing, and more, as it battles Netflix over top creators  —  Google-owned platform rolling out better tools for digital producers that could help it keep more of their content exclusively
Reece Rogers / Wired:
Image At its Made on YouTube event, YouTube unveils Custom Feeds, an LLM-powered feature that lets users generate and save tailored homepage video feeds, for US users  —  In YouTube's latest update, viewers can tweak what the algorithm shows on their front page and curate it to a specific vibe.
Robert Hart / The Verge:
Image Anthropic says Claude autonomously discovered a new enzyme system in the DNA of bacteriophages, somewhat similar to CRISPR, the first result from its new biolab  —  It took nearly 1,000 Claude agents 21 hours and 210 million tokens to uncover the ‘novel enzyme system.’
Google:
Image Google releases Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS, its “most expressive audio generation models yet”, with support for more than 100 languages  —  Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Gemini 3.8 Flash-Lite TTS are our most expressive audio generation models yet.
Ezra Klein / New York Times:
Image Q&A with Jensen Huang on AI creating more jobs than it destroys, pushing back against AI doomerism, Chinese open models, the Hugging Face acquisition, and more  —  This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.”  You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Reuters:
Image A sample of FBI data allegedly stolen by ShinyHunters includes granular detail on officials' job assignments on China, Russia, cartels, cyber, and other issues  —  FBI data allegedly stolen by the hacking group ShinyHunters carries granular detail about scores of bureau officials' job assignments …
Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:
Image Disney raises Disney+ and Hulu prices, the fourth price hike in as many years; the ad-free tiers will each cost $21.49/month, an increase of $2.50  —  Subscribing to a bundle is now almost exactly half the price of individual plans for each streamer.
Sam Yam / @samyamiam:
Patreon co-founder Sam Yam says he is joining OpenAI to lead Creator Product, alongside Patreon's Head of Product Drew Rowny and Head of Engineering Shannon Ma  —  1/ I'm joining @OpenAI to lead Creator Product after over 13 years since starting @Patreon. Coming with me are my favorite crew Drew Rowny and Shannon Ma, Patreon's (now former) Head of Product and Head of Engineering. We're going to build together with Creators at OpenAI and share early access to ...
The Age:
Image Australian PM Anthony Albanese says an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a public-facing Medicare portal in June, accessing public and non-public files  —  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed that an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI infiltrated …
Bloomberg:
Image Sam Altman and Dario Amodei tell the UN Security Council that governments and industry should coordinate on AI safety standards and critical decisions  —  OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and Anthropic PBC CEO Dario Amodei urged world leaders to work together on artificial intelligence …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Image At its Accelerate conference, Amazon says it is opening its seller tools to third-party AI agents, starting with Claude, in beta for US merchants  —  Amazon announced new AI tools for its independent sellers Wednesday, led by a plugin that lets them run their Amazon businesses from Anthropic's Claude or Amazon's own Quick assistant.
Damien Cave / New York Times:
Image Gallup survey of 37 countries: in 34, positive AI sentiment outweighed the negative; 90%+ of people in China and 66%+ in Nigeria say AI will improve daily life  —  A Gallup poll found that a majority of people surveyed across 37 countries said they were curious or excited about artificial intelligence, more than scared or worried.
Brian Kennedy / Pew Research Center:
Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:
Image The US criticizes Australia's digital duty-of-care proposal, which has a provision that would require social media platforms to let users opt out of algorithms  —  The US government criticized Australia's plan to clamp down on social media algorithms and harmful content online …
@openai:
OpenAI says ChatGPT Voice can now be powered by GPT-6 Astra, Sol, and Luna, use plugins like email and calendar, and be used in ChatGPT Work on web and mobile  —  We heard you loud and clear. ChatGPT Voice can now: - Use plugins like your email, calendar, and Slack. - Be powered by GPT-6 Astra, Sol, and Luna. - Be used in ChatGPT Work on web and mobile, so you can create docs, decks, sites, and spreadsheets or tackle complex tasks in the browser, just by ...
Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Image Pilgrim, whose device combines air sampling and genomic sequencing to detect biological threats, raised a $25M seed led by Buckley at a $150M valuation  —  Pilgrim has raised $25 million and has developed a 50-pound device that detects biological threats  —  Two Anthropic leaders are investing …
Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
Image Sources: Flock Safety is weighing a potential sale and has held preliminary talks with outside advisers  —  THE SCOOP  —  Flock Safety, which is facing scrutiny over the proliferation and alleged abuse of its cameras, is weighing whether to sell itself, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sana Pashankar / Bloomberg:
Image Seattle-based satellite startup Hubble, which is working to enable global Bluetooth connectivity, raised $200M at a $1.6B valuation, for $300M in total funding  —  Satellite startup Hubble Network raised $200 million in a new funding round, taking the company's valuation to $1.6 billion …
Financial Times:
Image Sources: China's SASAC, which oversees state-owned companies, is surveying the number of Broadcom switches in state-backed data centers amid a domestic AI drive  —  Survey comes amid drive to boost domestic players and reduce reliance on foreign AI infrastructure
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:NEW
Image Colorado-based Enveda, which uses AI to discover new drugs in the natural world, raised a $311M Series E at a $2B valuation, double its valuation a year ago  —  Enveda, a biotech startup that uses AI to discover new drugs in the natural world, has raised a $311 million Series E at a $2 billion valuation.
Zoe Kleinman / BBC:
Image OpenAI says it will give its AI cyber defense system Daybreak and GPT-5.6 Sol to the Ukrainian government for free to help it protect civilian infrastructure  —  The tech giant OpenAI will share its AI cyber defence system Daybreak for free with the Ukraine government to help …
Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg:
Image Source: 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, is in talks to raise $3B for its second growth fund and has already raised $2B of that target amount  —  Investment firm 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, is in talks to raise $3 billion for its second growth fund …
Anna Washenko / Engadget:
Image Discord is rolling out its updated age-verification policy this week, sorting users into either the Adult or Teen group based on account age, activity, and more  —  It will offer several privacy-focused options for users who aren't automatically confirmed as adults.
IDrive:
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Natasha Mascarenhas / Bloomberg:
Image Bessemer raised $5.75B, allocating $4B to growth-stage funding, including young companies raising large rounds at high valuations, and $1.75B for early-stage  —  Bessemer Venture Partners is set to announce $5.75 billion in fresh funding to support a broader shift towards more growth stage investments …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Image Ema, which uses AI agents to automate corporate processes across HR, IT, and finance, raised a $77M Series B led by Creaegis, taking its total funding to $140M  —  Ema, a startup that uses teams of AI agents to automate corporate processes across HR, IT, and finance, has raised $77 million …

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Image Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
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